‘I’ll teach the bastards some fucking Latin. Starting with the words “good”, “fucking” and “kicking”.’
He turned to the rest of the tent party.
‘Right, we’ve all seen a turd before, so stop looking like you want to honk up your biscuits. Get your fucking kit stowed and we’ll go for a look around and see if we can’t scare up something to drink or screw. Except for you …’
He pointed at the tent party’s newest recruit.
‘You can stay here and make sure the locals don’t take a shine to our kit. Don’t wash that shit off that spade once you’ve dumped it in the log cabin, and if anyone comes poking round just wipe it down their face as hard as you like. That ought to do the trick.’
The legion’s tribunes gathered late that afternoon, Flamininus among them with his face bruised and his eyes boring into Marcus at every opportunity. The object of his ire, for his part, chose to ignore the challenging stare, smiling quietly to himself at some private joke, or so it seemed. After a few moments, Scaurus swept into the room, looking around the gathering with apparent surprise.
‘All nine of you? That’s gratifying. I had wondered if a few of you might have chosen to ignore my message.’
‘Legatus, if I might make some intro-’
‘Introductions? Not just now, thank you Tribune Umbrius. There’ll be plenty of time for getting to know each other later, when we’ve worked out which of you will be staying with the legion.’
He looked around at them, waiting for someone to break the silence.
‘Staying with the legion, Legatus?’
The broad stripe tribune had spoken again, clearly intent on playing to his role as the most senior of the group, and his legatus’s deputy.
‘Indeed, Tribune. Which of you will be considered fit to remain in your positions, and which of you I will be forced to dismiss from imperial service. As of now this legion is under wartime conditions. We will be marching for the border within a few weeks, with the intention of finding, challenging and destroying the Parthian force that has been harassing our outposts in Adiabene.’
‘But surely it’s too early in the year for a campaign of any duration. The weather …’
Scaurus shook his head at the attempted intervention.
‘The worst of the winter is over, Tribune. The weather from this point onwards, from my previous experience of the province, won’t ever get cold enough to freeze water. Compared to northern Britannia, or Dacia, that’s positively comfortable for a well-equipped infantryman kept warm by sufficient food, thick clothing and plenty of exercise. I think we’ll be safe enough making a swift march from the Euphrates to Nisibis. And when I say swift, gentlemen, you should take my words at face value.’
They looked at him uncomprehendingly.
‘The route I plan to take is, I’ll admit, a little risky. There will be times when we have no option but to double pace the legion for ten or twenty miles at a time.’
He waited for a moment for the real meaning of his words to dawn upon the officers gathered around him, but none of them showed any sign of comprehension.
‘I see that I shall have to make this very clear indeed. When I say that the legion will be forced to march at the double pace, I was speaking literally. Every man in the Third is going to have to learn to cover twenty miles in five hours with full equipment.’
Still the officers failed to react with any sign of understanding.
‘Every man, gentlemen. Including all of you.’
‘But …’
‘Yes, Tribune?’
Umbrius’s face was creased in a frown.
‘Legatus, the legion’s gentlemen ride to war. We do not march like the common soldiery.’
Scaurus raised an eyebrow, apparently intrigued by the idea.
‘I see. How very … gentlemanly. And tell me, Tribune, what will you do if your horse goes lame?’
‘I’ll get on my spare, Legatus.’
Scaurus nodded, conceding the point with a knowing smile.
‘And if a Parthian raid makes off with your horses – all three of them, obviously – what then?’
Umbrius looked back at his commanding officer with dawning horror.
‘I’ll … march?’
Scaurus nodded slowly.
‘Indeed you will. The purposes of an officer’s horse, gentlemen, are several. The horse provides a vantage point over the heads of the men around the officer, allowing him to see and be seen. The horse provides its rider with speed over the ground for the swift delivery of messages, and allows him to move quickly to points where his presence is essential. It provides a means of following up behind a retreating enemy, in order to guide in the pursuers and be sure that no ambush has been set by the rearguard. It is most emphatically not intended to enable him to avoid undertaking the same hardships we expect of our men. And gentlemen, I expect every man in this room to be capable of matching our soldiers stride for stride over any distance and at any speed of march. While we train for war you will therefore march alongside your men, all of whom will be carrying a good deal more weight than you since your possessions are carried in carts while they have to hoist everything they own onto a pack pole.’
He looked around at their horrified faces.
‘You may not like it, but there it is. You all volunteered to be officers, and in my legion officers don’t sit around all day allowing their centurions to run the show. Your days of indolent luxury in Daphne are over, as from the moment you walked into this office. This legion needs officers. Your soldiers need leaders, men they can see sharing their hardships, living alongside them, fighting alongside them and if necessary, dying alongside them too. You will all, every one of you, learn to march very quickly indeed, and brush up on your weapons skills too, if you don’t want to be left behind when the legion marches.’
He looked about him again with a hard smile.
‘Oh yes, there’s a threat that some of you will be considering with an inner smirk, isn’t there? To be left behind in Antioch, while the rest of us march off to provide the Parthians with a little light target practice, doomed to die in the desert at the hands of eastern barbarians? That doesn’t sound so bad an alternative, I’d imagine. Except, gentlemen, consider this.’
He pinched the wool of his tunic, emphasising the garment’s thin stripe.
‘I’m sure you noticed it the moment I walked in. I’m just an equestrian! An upstart! A man with everything to prove, which is probably why the freedman who’s currently running the empire gave me command of this legion. He knows that I’ll beat you all into prime condition, and give the enemy more to think about than they’re expecting, given just how dissolute their spies will have been telling them you are.’
He grinned at them without a trace of humour.
‘But while I may only be an equestrian, I’m nobody’s fool, gentlemen. I accepted this command from the imperial chamberlain in return for one simple promise. He guaranteed me that any man I choose to send home, any of you judged to be unfit to hold the position of tribune in my legion for the reason of failing to make sufficient effort in his training, would have his family’s affairs investigated most thoroughly.’
He smiled at them knowingly.
‘It was a promise he was delighted to make. You’re all the sons of rich men, by comparison with the poor bastards you’re supposed to be leading. Can you all say with absolute certainty that your fathers came by that wealth fairly? That they’ve all paid their taxes on time and in full? That none of them has ever bribed an imperial official? I wouldn’t have thought that even the most scrupulous of men would relish Cleander’s investigators picking apart the seams of their lives, looking for hidden gold. And that, I promise you, would be the least of it.’
‘I have nothing to fear. My family’s wealth is honestly come by, and so vast that fraud really isn’t necessary.’